Page 50 of Sky Song
She pursed her lips. “I thought you were being serious.”
“I am.”
“What’s the drug called?”
“I heard it called detrozanine. There are other names for it.” He was looking at her intently.
Cricket frowned. “I’ve never heard of it.”
He shifted his regard away from her. “I don’t expect you would. It’s banned around the Universe.”
“Lyle, assuming the drug is banned for a reason, why are you taking it?”
“Because it helps.” His head lolled back, and a sigh escaped him.
“Helps with what?” she pressed.
“Anger management.”
She wanted to slap him. “You’re not funny.”
He smiled crookedly, just the tips of his predatory long teeth showing on one side. “Note, I don’t pitch screaming fits.”
She broke off a small piece of cheese and put it in her mouth. “Noted.” She chewed hard.
Hipper had been restless all night and kept waking Cricket up with soft yowls. He obviously sensed Lyle, and his behavior was bound to continue so long as the alien was in the vicinity. The silly critter was making it problematic for Lyle to stay at her house.
When Cricket went to talk to Lyle in the morning, he was gone.
At the lab, she found Terrance and Salty in an animated discussion about the merits of polygamy.
“I don’t understand why more people don’t practice it.” Terrance’s face wore its usual goofy expression with a dose of a daredevil thrown in, and he was slinging biohazardous samples around like they were Wiffle balls.
“Monogamy is what changed life to civilization from a few huts with a headman and a seraglio,” Salty intoned.
“How do you know?” Terrance challenged.
“Because I read.”
Terrance failed to be convinced. “I mean, polygamy can’t be that bad. I may apply for it when I’m ready to settle down.”
“Good luck finding women willing to share a husband, you dumbass.” Salty shook her head in disgust.
“Why? What's wrong with variety?”
Salty looked Cricket’s way. “I suppose when you’re a nineteen year-old male,varietyis all you have on your brain.”
Cricket wasn’t going to participate with an opinion. She had dated two men in her entire life and had sex a grand total of ten times: seven with the first one and three with the second one. She very much enjoyed sex with her first boyfriend whom she’d met at a community event - that had been when she was curious enough to attend community events. He’d been her first, and she’d fallen in love. She had been crushed when he dumped her after explaining that their relationship had sprung sudden andunplanned, that she was taking too much of his time, and that he needed to focus on his dissertation.
The second time, she’d ditched the spontaneity and taken the appropriate route of signing up for matchmaking services. After all, the advances in predictive algorithms had made failure near obsolete, and the vast majority of Meeus families began with careful planning.
The agency Cricket had signed up with had run all kinds of tests on her, physical and psychological, to find a perfect candidate. She had been interviewed by seven different agents, each tackling different aspects of her preferences, personality, and interests. It had taken over a month of dedicated work before a case manager compiled her file and put it into circulation.
She’d been matched with four men, met two of them in person, and dated one, which included those three bedroom sessions. Overall, he had been a good match, but the spark just wasn’t there.
In retrospect, one time should have been enough to figure that out, but Cricket, self-conscious and disappointed, had thought she needed to try harder, to will herself into the mood.
Embarrassed at becoming the first failure in the history of the matchmaking agency that had worked so diligently with her, she had bleated some excuse to the concerned lady who handled her case and asked to suspend her profile.
